How to manage KVM virtual machines using virsh

virsh is a program which uses libvirt to manage KVM virtual machines (guests).

I’m going to show a summary of its main functions 

Show Hosts’ information:

• Show a host’s info: virsh nodeinfo

• Show KVM version installed: virsh version

Show guests’ information:

• Show a list of all the defined guests: virsh list –all
• Show a list of all running gust: virsh list
• Show a guest’s info: virsh dominfo guest's_name 
• To display virtual CPU information: virsh vcpuinfo guest's_name

Start and stop guests:

• Start a guest: virsh start guest's_name
• Shutdown a guest (gently): virsh shutdown guest's_name
• Shutdown a guest (wild): virsh destroy guest's_name
• Reboot a guest: virsh reboot guest's_name
• Suspend a guest: virsh suspend guest's_name
• Resume a suspended guest: virsh resume guest's_name

Create and modify guests:

• Create a guest from its XML definition: virsh create xml_file.xml
• Dump a guest’s definition in XML: virsh dumpxml guest's_name
• Modify a guest’s definition: virsh edit guest's_name 

this uses the default editor. To use another editor like nano, you can use
EDITOR=nano virsh edit guest's_name

• Remove a guest’s definition (it doesn’t remove the image file): virsh undefine guest's_name

Backup and restore guests:

• Save a guest’s state on a file: virsh save guest's_name guest's_state_file
• Restore a guest from a state file: virsh restore guest's_state_file